In surprising news, Apple just announced that Sir Jony Ive will leave the company later this year. He will start his own design company with Apple as a client.
LoveFrom
Design team leaders Evans Hankey, vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, vice president of Human Interface Design, will report to Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer. Mr. Williams led the development of the Apple Watch and will work more closely with the design team. So far there doesn’t seem to be an immediate successor as chief design officer.
The new company will reportedly be called LoveFrom, launching in 2020. Mr. Ive told the Financial Times that he plans to focus on wearables and healthcare and his fellow Apple designer Marc Newson will join him.
Speaking of the news, Sir Jony said:
After nearly 30 years and countless projects, I am most proud of the lasting work we have done to create a design team, process and culture at Apple that is without peer. Today it is stronger, more vibrant and more talented than at any point in Apple’s history. The team will certainly thrive under the excellent leadership of Evans, Alan and Jeff, who have been among my closest collaborators. I have the utmost confidence in my designer colleagues at Apple, who remain my closest friends, and I look forward to working with them for many years to come.
Although he has headed the design of many products, including the iPhone, Sir Jony’s best known product is probably the original iMac. Its fresh, whimsical design helped turn the Mac line around. He was also alleged to have been the mind behind Apple Watch.
Further Reading:
Apple. please, please, please, functionality-accessibility BEFORE plain design-minimalism. There is something much more important than plain design: functionality. Sometimes Apple forgets that For instance, back ports on Mac instead of much useful frontal ones, lack of disk and CPU activity lights on Mac, misleading black screen while shutting down Mac not yet turned off (imagine catastrophic effects when unplugging external booting disk in a hurry), lack of matte display as previously available, lack of power button on keyboard as was previously possible, etc.
Maybe he could redesign the Apple TV controller
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2622.html
Ive is a very talented designer.
But his best work was when he had Jobs to push back.
His best work was before Jobs left.
So I wish him all the luck and look forward to his nest projects.
But even more I’m looking forward to what the Apple team can do WITHOUT the limits of Ive’s vision.
What is the name of this business, THIN
Heh, just updated the article with more info. It will be called LoveForm.